


tell me it's there (just beyond me)

by blubark



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, WW2 AU, i just needed something soft, minor racism and homophobia, niko go away challenge 1945
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 07:22:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19146253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blubark/pseuds/blubark
Summary: Eve hadn’t slept for twenty-eight hours, and time took on a sticky quality, drifting by before rushing over several hours in an instant. She knew, somewhere, people were celebrating for the liberation of France. She wondered if Niko was there, enjoying himself, while she struggled to make soldiers and civilians comfortable in a cold tent.She hoped he was, hoped he wasn’t somewhere like this. A four-hundred bed field hospital set up in the grounds of some French aristocrats house, with grass floors that had already been disturbed by the heavy steps of stretcher-bearers....Eve is a nurse in WW2, and Oksana is wounded on D-Day.





	tell me it's there (just beyond me)

It started like this:

A woman, brought in on a stretcher by two men, arm tipped over the side, red smeared down her front and up her face.

A nurse, brought over for triage, to see if she’s salvageable, hands running up to the wound in the shoulder that’s sluggishly leaking blood.

A trip to hospital.

…

Eve rode in the back with the wounded, holding the hand of one of the men – one of the boys. He wanted his mother and he could have been her son, in another life, chin clear of stubble, skin unlined.  

He had a shredded lump of bone where a leg had once been, hidden under layers and layers of gauze that she’d stuck there after the morphine injection.

Next to her, the woman stirred, eyelids opening to shows the white of her eyes. The blue and black bruise-like marks under her eyes made her look paler, sick.

‘You’re OK. You’re safe.’ Eve leaned in to be heard over the engines, the groans and the sobbing of the men. Background noise, now.

‘Anna,’ the woman croaked around cracked lips. ‘Anna.’

‘Shh.’ Eve stroked the woman’s hair back out of her face where sweat had glued it down, stroked a thumb across her eyebrow as her mother had once done for her.

The woman continued to struggle out of sleep, groaning as she shifted her shoulder. Her arm had been wrapped against her chest, and her fingers flexed against the bandages.

‘Shh,’ Eve said again, and the woman managed to open her eyes, glazed with painkillers. She stilled, eyes roaming over Eve’s face.

‘Shh.’

The woman nodded.

…

Eve hadn’t slept for twenty-eight hours, and time took on a sticky quality, drifting by before rushing over several hours in an instant. She knew, somewhere, people were celebrating for the liberation of France. She wondered if Niko was there, enjoying himself, while she struggled to make soldiers and civilians comfortable in a cold tent.

She hoped he was, hoped he wasn’t somewhere like this. A four-hundred bed field hospital set up in the grounds of some French aristocrats house, with grass floors that had already been disturbed by the heavy steps of stretcher-bearers.  

The boy had died, he’d died even before they got here. They’d said she should have left him behind and she knew that, knew that the morphine had been a waste, that he would be a miracle case, but he’d radiated youth and life and she hadn’t seen past it to the coldness, creeping in from his core.

She sat and listened to a man who showed her a picture of his wife, back home, thanking her over and over again for saving his life, for saving _her_ life, because what would she do if he died, how would she manage.

She re-bandaged a wound that another man had reopened trying to get up and go back to the war, he was needed in the war, just let him go, let him go.

She held a bucket for a man puking, the morphine upsetting his stomach and his mood, the tears rolling down his cheeks.

She laughed with Elena out the back of the tent, cigarette smoke curling in the air between them as Elena complained about a man crying about his missing toe.

‘It’s only one,’ Elena said. ‘I wouldn’t mind if I lost my hammer toe.’

‘I don’t know. Maybe his wife likes his toes?’

Elena choked, waved a hand. ‘I know I should be nicer. But some of them are testing me. Like that woman. You should have left her behind. The shoulder one.’

‘She’s awake?’ Eve tapped her cigarette with her thumb, watching the ash fall to the muddy ground. 

‘I wish she weren’t. Rude bitch.’

Eve smiled at the disgusted expression on Elena’s face. ‘And you’re so polite.’

Elena shook her head. ‘You’ll see what I mean.’

Eve dropped the last bit of her cigarette, squishing it into the earth with her toe. ‘You should get some sleep.’

‘I’m on my way. Don’t be too far away, yeah?’

Eve ducked back into the tent. It was quieter now, the sounds of men shifting in their bunks and sniffs creating the ambience now, rather than violent sobbing.

Eve walked slowly among the beds, stopping to help men as needed. Her round brought her to the woman, tucked off in bed in a corner, waiting for surgery to remove the bullet. She was down the list a fair way, useless in the greater cause as with the other two women in this section. A curtain had been strung up for their privacy. The woman looked less pale, the transfusion having brought blood back to her cheeks. She still had blood in her hair, dried, sticking the ends together.

‘How are you feeling?’

The woman turned her head from staring at the ceiling to look at Eve. ‘Not great.’

She had a Russian accent, thick and heavy, at odds with her delicate features. ‘Do you need more morphine?’

The woman shook her head. Eve watched as the hand under the bandage moved, as the woman’s eyes tightened in the tell-tale expression of pain.

‘You don’t have to suffer. We have enough for everyone,’ Eve said.

The woman smiled now, an expression edged with scorn. ‘I’m not that patriotic.’

‘No. You’re Russian?’

‘ _Da_.’

Eve could hear the derision in her voice, moved to sit at the end of the woman’s bed. ‘What’s your name?’

‘We are not friends,’ the woman said. ‘Don’t sit here.’ She moved her foot as if to kick Eve, then thought better of it.

Eve took the clipboard from the end of the bed, held it up so the woman could see it. ‘I need to know what to call you.’

‘Nothing. I won’t be here long.’

‘You need surgery, to get the bullet from your shoulder.’ Eve tapped the pencil against the piece of paper. ‘I could call you Fanny? Gertrude?’

The woman’s face stretched in a frown, lips drawn down. ‘I thought the bullet came out already? Through and through.’

‘There’s a significant amount of shrapnel.’

The woman sighed, thumping her head back against the pillow. ‘Shit.’

‘So, what are we going to call you?’

The woman put her good hand up to her eyes, rubbing at them before burying her face in the crook of her elbow. ‘Oksana,’ she said.

‘How do you spell that?’

‘I don’t care,’ Oksana snapped.

‘I’m Eve.’ Eve wrote the name down – O X S A N N E –  hooking the clipboard back over the end of the bed.

‘Pleasure.’

Eve took a breath, studying the line of the woman’s chin, the flaking dried brown in the lines of her neck where some nurse had missed a splotch of blood. ‘What did you say to Elena?’

‘Who?’ Oksana lifted her arm, looked down at Eve.

‘The other nurse.’

‘Oh.’ Oksana shrugged, lopsided. ‘I said she had the brains and face of a sheep.’

‘Why?’

Oksana was upset, Eve realised, mouth still pulled down as if to look angry, but her chin quivered. ‘She kept asking about my shoulder.’

Eve tapped a finger against her own chin, eyes drawn to the trembling in Oksana’s. Oksana’s mouth twitched, and she pulled it more sharply to the side, brow furrowing. Her features stilled. 

‘I’d be nicer to her,’ Eve said, after a moment.

Oksana rolled her eyes. ‘I’m very scared of her.’

‘I’d be more scared of me,’ Eve said.

Oksana studied her, now, hazel eyes boring into Eve’s brown ones, sweeping across the line of Eve’s mouth. Oksana pursed her lips. ‘I was in the resistance.’ Eve felt a thrill, a wonder, at what that would be like, in the action instead of in the aftermath. ‘I’m not scared of you.’

‘I can be scary.’

Oksana nodded. ‘ _Da_ ,’ she said.

She didn’t sound mocking, this time.

…

‘She’s awake.’ Elena stomped up to the nurse’s station, where Eve was sitting chewing on a sandwich.

‘Oksana?’

‘She’s in a really bad mood.’ Elena sat down, pilfering the other half of Eve’s lunch.

‘I was eating that.’

‘She’s really pissed about her arm.’

Eve frowned. ‘What happened?’

‘They got all the shrapnel out, but they say there’s nerve damage. They can’t be sure how bad, but I mean, her shoulder was smashed up, so they think it won’t ever be the same.’

Eve took another bite of the sandwich. It was stale, but not mouldy, practically a delicacy. She found herself wondering what she would do if she lost an arm, a leg.

A toe.

‘I’ll go talk to her.’

Elena nodded, watching as Eve got up. ‘Good luck.’

‘You owe me half a sandwich.’

‘Come find me when the war is over,’ Elena said with a smile that didn’t meet her eyes.

Oksana was sitting up in bed, legs drawn up, her good hand – left – picking clumsily at the dry skin on her foot. Her feet were cracked in the way many of the men’s were, where the damp had caused them to swell under callouses and break open.

‘Hello.’

Oksana glanced at Eve. ‘I’m not sorry for being rude,’ she said, turning her attention back to her foot.  Eve sat at the end of the bed, studying her profile, the gentle curve in her nose. A bowl sat on her side table, filled with the vegetable and gravy stew that someone had made in the kitchens of the aristocrat’s house.

‘Are you hungry?’

Oksana’s nostrils flared. ‘No.’ Her stomach rumbled.

‘Are you right-handed?’

Oksana’s jaw tightened, and she nodded.

‘It might be fine. We just have to see.’ In Eve’s experience, that’s all anyone really ever wanted to hear – it will be OK, you’re safe, everything will be fine, it might not be so bad.

Oksana just shook her head.

Eve picked up the bowl. ‘Do you want help?’

‘No, I don’t want help,’ Oksana snapped, scowling at Eve. ‘I’m not a child.’

‘You’re acting like one. You need to eat. You can’t heal if you don’t.’

Oksana narrowed her eyes. ‘I can do it myself.’

‘Go on, then.’ Eve placed the bowl in Oksana’s lap, passed her the spoon. Oksana took it, poking the end awkwardly into the stew, pushing the gravy around as though looking for something.

‘Don’t you have other people to bother?’

‘Nope.’ Eve smiled.

Oksana gathered up a bit of stew, bringing it up to her mouth. It wasn’t a smooth movement, slightly jerky, but she didn’t spill any and sped up after that, wolfing the gravy down. Only a drop landed on her blue hospital gown.

‘Nice?’

‘Terrible,’ Oksana said, licking the spoon clean. ‘I was just hungrier than I thought.’

‘Right.’ Eve watched her wipe her mouth with the back of her hand, the tiredness of the last few days settling on her in this moment, watching someone get used to their new life in the war. She saw it again and again, the men who thought that everything had changed as much as it could only to find themselves disabled, paralysed, friends and family dying right next to them. The way none of it feel real and all of it felt too real, realising there wasn’t an after this point in sight, just a next moment.

Oksana seemed unsure of herself under the scrutiny, gently moving the bowl back to the side table, wiping the back of her hand on the wide of the bed and placing it in her lap.

‘You’re staring,’ Oksana said.

‘I’m tired.’

…

It became a routine, Oksana upsetting Elena and Eve marching across to ask her to stop.

‘You know you could just ask me to come back tomorrow?’ Eve said, sitting at the end of Oksana’s bed.

‘I don’t want you to come back.’ Oksana lay propped up against the end of the bed, her ratty hair somehow working for her. She smirked down the bed at Eve.

‘No?’

‘I’m just bored, and Elena is easy. And then you come.’ Oksana nodded at the bed next to her. ‘She is deaf and she,’ she pointed at the bed across the way, ‘is mentally deficient, or something.’

‘She’s in shock,’ Eve said, lowering her voice.

‘As I said.’

Eve had to work hard not to smile at the pout on Oksana’s face. ‘What am I?’

Oksana tipped her head to the side, as if thinking. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. She looked at Eve in that way she had, where Eve felt like she was being seen through

‘I could try and bring you a book?’ Eve said. ‘Do you read French?’

‘Yes.’ Oksana looked away, a hurt expression hitting her face. Eve watched her pull herself back together, a calm mask slipping over her features.

‘I’ll bring you something, then.’

…

Eve gave her a bath, and Oksana was silent, lips pressed together. Eve ran the sponge up and down her legs, arms, chest (between and over her breasts, Oksana looking at her, staring at her, like…), back, wiping away sweat and grit. She rubbed a wet towel in the ends of her hair, trying to get the clumps of blood out.

Oksana sighed, closed her eyes, muscles losing tension as Eve rubbed at the back of her neck. Eve traced a finger over a scar high on her back, wondering how it had come to be. She pictured a knife fight with a German, a woman scratching her back, a bar fight.

Even with the sweat, Oksana smelled good. That was Eve’s major revelation. She couldn’t count how many times she’d done this, and the men just smelled, before and after. Beneath the faint metal tinge of blood and antiseptic smell under her bandages, Oksana smelled light, warm, earthy in a fresh rain way. She found herself putting her face closer, breathing it in, pressing harder with the sponge when Oksana made a noise of pleasure.

The curtain jerked aside, and Oksana put her left arm over her breasts.

‘There you are,’ Elena said.

Eve dropped the sponge from Oksana’s ribs to the bucket. ‘What?’ she said.

Elena frowned at the tone. ‘I need some help moving Mr Graham.’

‘Can’t one of the others help?’ Eve shook her head as soon as she said it. ‘Sure, I’ll be out in a moment.’

‘OK,’ Elena said slowly, looking from Oksana to Eve before backing out, drawing the curtain back across.

Eve finished quickly, silently, and Oksana didn’t say anything either.

She didn’t drop her arm from her breasts.

…

‘Ouch,’ Oksana said, her face screwed up as Eve manipulated her right arm, pulling it away from her body. Eve had helped her out of her top, the process awkward and bringing her too much time being able to see Oksana’s breasts. She’d never noticed before, how often she got to see naked bodies, how little she’d cared before now. The stitches stand out on Oksana, black against the angry red of her skin. Eve found herself thinking of them often, now, laying in bed thinking about how close Oksana had been to a kill shot, the bullet bursting through her throat, through the back of her skull, sending chunks of the honey hair flying.

She very carefully didn’t think about how she hasn’t thought about Niko.

‘Can you squeeze?’ Eve put her hand in Oksana’s, squeezing. Oksana squeezed back, face screwed up in concentration. Her hand was cold but smooth, long fingers twitching in Eve’s. Her grip was weak. Eve asked her to lift her arm up to shoulder height, gently, gently, not if it hurts, but Oksana couldn’t.  

‘How about holding up a finger?’

Oksana frowned at her hand, fingers trembling in and out of a fist. Eve studied her face, watching the various emotions roll across the smooth expanse like clouds across a hill – possible to see some vague shape, to parse some meaning, before it was replaced by another twisted form.

Oksana looked up with a smirk, seeming taken aback to see Eve gazing at her so intently. They held eye contact, Eve watching the tiny muscles around Oksana’s eyes shift.

‘I did it?’ Oksana said, tongue darting out to wet her lips.

Eve glanced at the movement, then let her eyes drift further down, to where Oksana is flipping her off.

‘Charmer,’ Eve said, voice hoarse.

…

Oksana only became more irritating when she got well enough to start walking around. She stalked up and down the rows of beds, making friends and enemies with the same ease. Her and Elena have come to a kind of truce, Oksana drawn to the woman’s crude sense of humour.

‘Your girlfriend seems to like me,’ Elena said, voice low in Eve’s ear.

Eve is watching Oksana tease Richard about his beard. It’s patchy and scraggly, grown out through his recuperation from two bullets to the thigh. Oksana grabbed her own hair – greasy and frizzy – putting it under her nose to form a moustache, pulling a frown remarkably like Richard’s. Richard laughed, the sound seeming to echo in the otherwise quiet space, heads turning. At times like this, Oksana seemed so much younger, the resistance fighter gone and replaced by a girl who hadn’t let herself be forced to grow up.

‘She’s not my girlfriend,’ Eve said, a slight smile.

‘She likes you. You know that, right?’ Elena waggled a hand side to side. ‘She’s one of _them_.’

Eve pushed Elena’s hand down, trying to keep the blush from creeping up her neck. ‘You’re being mean. She’s trying to be nice to you.’

Elena raised her eyebrows, looking away. ‘Just… be careful.’

Oksana swaggered over as Elena moved off. Eve wasn’t sure if that’s how she walked before the gunshot and her hand being trapped against her chest, but her left arm seemed to have overcompensated for her right’s entombment, swinging in a wide arc to give her torso a cocky twist.

‘I’m bored,’ she said, her favourite opening line.

‘I’m working,’ Eve said.

‘I’ll help,’ Oksana said.

Eve paused, hands full of bandages. ‘What?’

Oksana waved at Eve’s supplies. ‘I’ve seen you do mine, I can help now.’

‘That’s – ‘

‘Please?’ Oksana looked at the ground, fingers twitching at her side. ‘I can still be helpful.’ She pulled a face, shifting her feet.

Eve laughed to cover the awkward moment. ‘You’ve never been a real help to me.’

‘Well, I could be.’ Her tone was half teasing and half something else that Eve doesn’t care to examine.

Eve took her on the round, and didn’t quite regret it, even after catching Elena’s dark looks over at them.

 _She likes you_. She heard Elena in her head as Oksana passed her bandages and scissors and tape, as Oksana offered to carry as much as she, as Oksana made sure she took breaks, as Oksana glared difficult patients into compliance.

The next patient was Mr Hall, a charming Glasgow man with silver hair. He’d fought in the Great War too, and had told Eve that he was just glad to be alive at this stage, no point worrying about the future, worrying had sent him grey in his twenties.

‘That’s really gross,’ Oksana said matter-of-factly, to Mr Hall, who’s missing a large chunk of his calf to a bullet and then an infection.

‘Oksana,’ Eve hissed, reaching out to slap her knee. ‘Quiet.’

Mr Hall nodded. ‘No, to be fair, it is gross,’ he said in his broad accent, watching Eve start to clean the wound, painkillers preventing him from shifting.

‘Oh, aye, grosser’n anything I seen before,’ Oksana said, a pitch-perfect replica. Eve blinked. Oksana hadn’t shown this particular skill before.

‘That’s very good, where’d you learn that?’ Mr Hall leaned forward, leg moving in Eve’s hand. She jumped back to attention, continuing to wipe over the wound.

Oksana preened, tapping her nose. ‘I’m just clever,’ she said.

‘Oksana, gauze?’ Eve held out her hand, and Oksana plopped it into her hand.

‘I’m just clever,’ Mr Hall echoed back, his Russian accent sounding decidedly Scottish.

Oksana laughed, and Eve found herself pausing in her ministrations to watch. Oksana looked younger, like a weight had been lifted from her back, smile losing its cocky edge. Eve wanted to put that smile on her face, to hear that laugh again, the lack of pretense.

‘You are not clever,’ Oksana said. She caught Eve’s eye. ‘Like that, anyway.’

Eve finished up and went to the next patient. Oksana drifted away after Eve, still trying to teach Mr Hall how to say ‘I’m just clever’ in her accent.

‘You could have stayed,’ Eve said.

‘No, no, I have a very important job,’ Oksana said, winking at Eve.

Eve swallowed.

God help her, she also liked the cocky smile.

…

Eve was with Rodney Callingham, trying to work out if his rash was dermatitis or something more sinister. Oksana had retreated to her corner, her and Rodney having a strange rivalry.

‘How’s my favourite nurse?’ Rodney said, smiling broadly at her.

‘Great. And how are you?’

‘Never better than when you’re here,’ he said. ‘Actually, I was wondering – ‘

He cut off as a yell from outside broke across the air. Eve turned her head, catching Elena’s eye. Another yell.

Elena jerked her head towards the tent opening, and they set off together. Eve could see Oksana making her way up the rows of beds too.

Outside, there was a man, tall, black-haired (and for a second she thought…), standing on crutches, yelling at another soldier. Eve recognised the soldier as Private Briggs.

Briggs raised a hand in greeting. ‘Sorry ma’am,’ he said.

The man on crutches turned (and it wasn’t him). He looked furious, face twisted, teeth bared.

‘Oh, you hire fucking Nip’s here?’

Eve had a half-second in which to feel rage, shame, bursting hot in her chest, before Oksana had run forwards, left hand swinging in a clumsy arc to smash across the man’s face. The man went down, crutches falling out from his body, and Eve watched Oksana leap down on top of him, Briggs grabbing her arm before she got a chance to hit him again.

She yelled something in Russian, thrashing in Briggs’s grip.

‘Oksana,’ Eve said. ‘Oksana!’

Oksana stopped and looked over at Eve, and oh _God_. Her chest was heaving, teeth bared in a snarl, eyes deep and dark and Eve felt light-headed, suddenly, like she couldn’t breathe, like all the heat in her chest had been scooped out and replaced with… something else.

Oksana shrugged off Briggs, spitting at the other man’s feet.

‘Say it again,’ she snarled.

The man groaned, reaching a hand up to his nose.

‘Inside,’ Elena said to Eve. ‘Both of you.’

Oksana squelched back through the mud, the sopping dirt pushed up between her toes and over the tops of her feet.

Eve reached out a hand and took her sleeve, tugging her back into the tent.

‘Eve?’ Rodney propped himself up as she passed, still holding Oksana’s sleeve. ‘Is everything alright?’

‘Yes, thanks, Rodney.’ Eve didn’t miss the way Oksana glared at him too.

She pulled Oksana all the way up to her bed before letting her go, pointing at the bed. ‘Sit.’

Oksana sat, looking up at Eve, still brimming with that anger, the energy.

‘That was…’ Eve took a deep breath. ‘Uncalled for.’

Oksana scoffed. ‘He insulted you.’

‘It’s not your place to defend me.’

‘Yes, it is.’ Oksana dropped her gaze. The knuckles on her left hand were already blooming with bruises.  ‘You are my… my friend.’

Eve swallowed, dropping onto the bed beside Oksana. She put her face in her hands, elbows on her knees, and took a deep breath. She didn’t know how she felt, the lightness and the heaviness, the weariness and the excitement waging a war in her body. For a second she’d thought it was Niko, and she didn’t know if she was relieved or upset that it wasn’t.

‘Thanks,’ she said, quiet. She felt Oksana’s hand on her back, patting her twice before being taken away.

‘There, there,’ Oksana said, her tone so awkward Eve can’t help but snort.

‘What? I’m comforting you,’ Oksana said.

Eve started to laugh harder, and she can feel the tears building up behind her eyes.

‘I thought he was my husband,’ she said.

‘Oh.’ The word hung in the air. ‘I didn’t know you were married.’ Oksana sounded upset too, and Eve turned her head to see her staring at her knuckles.

‘Yeah. I don’t – I guess we haven’t talked about it.’

Oksana’s jaw tightened, muscle jumping out in her neck. ‘Do you love him?’

Eve swallowed. ‘Yes.’

Oksana looked at her now, face still tight. ‘Thank you for telling me.’ She looked fierce, still, like Boudica, like Morgan le Fay, her hair wild and tangled around her face. Like something untameable and unknowable but God, all Eve wanted to do was know her.

…

‘How did you get shot?’ Eve said, Oksana squeezing her hand as instructed.

‘With a bullet,’ Oksana said, waggling her fingers. She still can’t quite lift her arm, grip not quite as strong as it should be.

‘Your time here is close to ending, I thought – ‘

‘What? Where am I going?’

Eve paused. ‘Home,’ she said.

Oksana’s face crumpled in something like shock, outrage, sadness. ‘Russia?’

‘I don’t – wherever you were home before all this?’

‘You want to send me back to _Russia_?’ Oksana pulled her hand back.

Eve stood, holding her hands up. ‘No. Just wherever you call home.’

‘I don’t have a home.’ Oksana put her left hand up to brush her fingers across the bullet-wound. ‘They did this.’

‘Your family?’

Oksana shook her head, pressing her lips together in a thin line. ‘I want to stay here. I will help you, more.’

‘Train as a nurse?’

Oksana nodded, and Eve paused. ‘How did you get shot?’ she said again.

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ Oksana said, frowning.

‘Why?’

Oksana swallowed. ‘It’s painful.’

‘Talking about things can help.’ Eve wanted to know, needed to know. It was all she could do to keep her hands to herself, to not shake Oksana and beg for a secret, something to bind them together.

Oksana looked up at the ceiling. Eve can see her throat bob. ‘I’m not normal,’ she said. Eve wasn’t sure how she meant that. The potential lesbianism Elena sees, her rudeness, her beauty. ‘I know that. But I – ‘

Eve put her hand on Oksana’s knee, squeezing. Oksana looked down at it, eyes following the movement of Eve’s thumb across her skin, the gown bunching mid-thigh.

‘Anna,’ Oksana said, her voice hoarse. ‘We were – close. In the resistance. There was a German man. She said it wasn’t consensual. So I – ‘ She looked at Eve now, her eyes looking green with the red creeping around her eyelids. She smiled, a faint twitch upwards of her lips. Eve doesn’t need her to finish the sentence, thinks maybe she already knew.

‘I don’t regret it,’ Oksana said, tilting her chin up in challenge.

‘I understand.’

Oksana bit her lip, a faint furrow between her brow. ‘You mean that.’

It wasn’t a question, but Eve still nodded.

‘She said she loved him.’ Oksana breathed out a laugh. ‘She said I was a monster. I was just – she was – and then she’s getting someone to shoot me?’

Eve squeezed tighter, eyes not leaving Oksana’s. She thought about all the blank space around what Oksana had said – how long she’d been with Anna, why she was even in France, how involved in the resistance she’d been, the fact she’d gotten away, alive, that she’d found someone to help. Eve coloured in the edges, crafting a story for Oksana to live through as she continued to rub her knee.

Oksana sniffed, took a deep breath. ‘Anyway, better to be away from that, I think.’

Eve shook her head. ‘Better to be here.’ She reached out, cupped Oksana’s cheek. Oksana’s mouth parted, ever so slightly, eyes getting wider.

Eve smiled.

…

Oksana proved a good helper, mending fences with the people she’d hated previously, even poor Rodney, making rounds with Elena as well. She ignored the rude comments, the flirty comments, playing dumb, before turning to Eve and pulling faces to make her laugh.

She also seemed to handle the disgusting and shocking aspects of the job well, commenting on everything dryly but never phased, even during emergencies. Like she’d seen so many wounds it was all just old-school.

Maybe it was, Eve thought. Her time in the French resistance had clearly not been all that glamourous.

More than that, Eve liked having her there, just because. Her hands lingered on Eve’s now when passing her equipment, a stroke on her palm with long fingers. They fluttered around Eve as they work in the same spaces, landing on her shoulder, knee, arm, lower back before drifting away.

They laughed about nothing, happy to be in the same space.

Elena watched, warning Eve with frequency now, about the danger she’s in.

Eve just smiled.

…

Oksana’s arm was allowed down from her chest a full month after she first arrived, the danger of swelling and possibility of further damage lessened, according to the doctor. Eve’s worried it’s too soon, but she doesn’t think there’s a basis for it beyond an overprotective knot in her stomach, the worry that Oksana might still leave.

The other women had been moved, so they had this moment to themselves, which Eve was grateful for. She unwrapped Oksana slowly, easing her arm down, making sure her shoulder wound is still clean.

‘How does freedom feel?’ Eve said, poking Oksana’s side, still holding the long roll of bandages.

‘Strange.’ Oksana moved her hand. Her shoulder and arm had lost a lot of muscle, the bullet wound having left a dent. Eve thought it looked like she was wilting, like a plant who’s branch had overstayed its welcome, the energy all channelled to the flower. ‘I look deformed.’

‘No, you don’t,’ Eve said. ‘You look beautiful.’

Oksana looked at her, mouth held in that unhappy way of hers before she smoothed it out. She reached out, squeezed Eve’s fingers. ‘So do you,’ she said.

And Eve wanted to say, it’s not a competition, or, let me compliment you, or, don’t be so stupid, when Oksana is leaning in. The movement was slow but obvious, Oksana’s eyes open as she closes the distance, before stopping just inside Eve’s personal space. Eve could hear her heart beating in her ears, her body moving forward of it’s own volition, and what if she’s wrong, what if…

‘Eve,’ Oksana breathed, and Eve closed the distance, reaching a hand up to cup Oksana’s face, running it back to tangle her fingers in Oksana’s hair, meeting her lips.

…

It wasn’t safe, to be doing this, in a hospital, separated from everyone by a thin curtain, but Eve couldn’t help herself, didn’t care. They had to be quiet, Oksana making tiny noises in her throat that Eve could feel more than hear, Eve biting into her own arm to try and keep from crying out.

Oksana liked to go down on her, tongue moving soft and hard between her folds, frustrated to the point of tears by her lack of stamina with her right arm and her clumsiness with her left. Niko had done this a handful of time, but never with so much enjoyment, never in such a way that Eve was transported beyond insecurity.

Eve liked to touch, to explore Oksana’s body and her own reactions to Oksana’s body, the excitement almost foreign with how long it had been since she’d felt it. She’d run her hands over her breasts, her thighs, her cunt, dragging out release to enjoy the throbbing she felt between her own legs.

 ‘Oksana,’ she whispered. ‘Oksana.’

…

Oksana moved into the nurse’s station with them after another two weeks, and Eve barely slept the first few nights, conscious as she was of Oksana breathing in the bed next to her. They found less spaces and less time to be able to touch one another, which almost made it more exciting, Eve close to falling apart by the time the stars align.

The closeness continued, working shoulder pressed to shoulder, Oksana’s hands brushing across her body, Eve’s hands brushing across Oksana’s.

Oksana found an unused corridor in the manor house – ‘Nobody asks where I’m going because they all think I’m a little weird, can you believe that?’ – the dust making them cough and laugh as they move against each other against the floor.

Bruises became a permanent feature on the notches of Oksana’s spine, Eve’s spine, Oksana’s knees.

Oksana ran her finger down Eve’s back, tutting. ‘Poor baby. I should stop letting you do this.’

‘Don’t you dare.’

…

‘My father was a drunk, an idiot. I ran away to France, where it is not so cold and the women were beautiful. I should have run to America.’

…

‘My parents moved to the United States for a better life, and I left them for my own life. They died before I saw them again.’

…

‘Anna was my teacher.’

…

‘I couldn’t stand not knowing what it was like here, once Niko left.’

…

‘I don’t feel bad for anyone here, but I feel a lot for you.’

…

‘I don’t know what I’ll do, when the war is over. I don’t know how to go back, to being that bored.’

‘I’ll keep you from being bored.’

‘I’m too old for you.’

‘You’re perfect.’

‘You’re too young.’

‘I’m perfect, too.’

…

Eve knew she should be less happy than this. She had no idea if her husband was alive or dead, she watched men screaming and dying, crying, sat and listened to stories of people being blown apart, and through it all, she just felt alive. Six months passed in a blur of Oksana and blood, the hospital accepting the badly wounded from the frontline and patching them up to send back. They worked hard, long days, and she melted into the nights with Oksana’s breathing, her voice, her smell, the memory of her mouth and her hands.

…

They walked back to the medical tent, due for their shifts. They normally split up, waiting, not wanting to be seen together, but this morning they’d gone for breakfast together afterwards, Oksana keeping up a running commentary to Eve about how she’d had better food in Russia made from shoes.

‘I’ll miss you, tonight,’ Oksana said, rubbing at her shoulder, swinging her right arm a little higher. She had a longer shift, leaving no chance for them to meet.

‘Did I hurt you?’ Eve said, watching the way Oksana winced as she poked at her scar.

Oksana grinned. ‘Not in a way I didn’t like.’

Eve shook her head, spotting Elena hurrying across the grass towards them. She took a small step away from Oksana, who continued rubbing at her shoulder, face impassive.

‘Where have you been?’ Elena snapped, grabbing Eve’s hands.

‘Breakfast?’ Eve looked over Elena’s shoulder. Oksana had gone rigid, frowning at the back of Elena’s head.

‘Niko’s here.’

Eve thought maybe she should be happy, excited, but instead she’s worried, watching Oksana’s face go from annoyed to devastated, frown taking on a confused edge.

‘Here?’ Eve managed.

Oksana turned away to blink at the horizon.

‘Yeah. He’s been here the whole time. I was talking to Gemma, you know Gemma, the annoying one, and she was going on about this Niko, and I thought, and it’s him!’ Elena’s words tripped over each other on the way out, and Eve almost wanted to make her repeat them, to buy herself more time. Elena started to walk backwards, pulling Eve along.

‘Oksana?’ Eve said dumbly.

‘I have work.’ Oksana turned to look at her, smiling brightly. If Eve didn’t know her so well, didn’t know how mouldable her face was, she would have thought she was fine. ‘You go, Eve. See him.’ She walked away first, Eve studying the line of her back, the lopsided sweep of her shoulders. Her hair caught the sun, and Eve felt a lump in her throat, for the things they’d just lost.

It passed in a blur, the period from being found by Elena to seeing Niko. Elena made a beeline for Gemma, and Gemma flustered about, her cheeks a bright red as if embarrassed, and then she’s standing in front of Niko’s bed.

Apparently he’d caught something, some flu or cold or something, on the way here a month ago, which had been a bigger threat to his life than the shrapnel wound that tore across his cheek and eye.   

His hair was longer, his beard having grown in around his moustache, and he looked much older even though it’s only been a year. She wondered if she looked older too, found she didn’t want to know.

‘Eve. I – I can’t believe it.’ Niko sat up, slow, before standing. He was still weak on his feet, legs trembling beneath him.

Gemma made an aborted motion forwards to help him, before shoving her hands behind her back.

Eve took two steps to meet him, wrapping her arms around his middle. He kissed the top of her head, and she breathed him in, the thick scent of him, masculine and calming.

‘You’re alive,’ she said. Tears stabbed her eyes. ‘I’m – I should have been here.’

‘Gemma’s taken good care of me,’ he said. She heard something in his voice, and she thought maybe he would hear the same in her voice, if she were to talk about Oksana.

…

Oksana was avoiding her, spending her time learning from Elena, spending her meals eating alone and pretending to be asleep when Eve got to bed.

‘She’s not subtle,’ Elena said to Eve. ‘Why’s she mad at you?’

‘She’s not,’ Eve said, busying herself with reading the notes left at the nurses station. Oksana wasn’t, not really, Eve thought. She was hurt, sad, unsure how to handle the redefining of their relationship beyond acting angry. Well, Eve hoped. She didn’t know what to do if Oksana was mad, if she felt betrayed. This wasn’t like Anna, she thought to herself. She hadn’t lied.

‘You slept with her, huh?’

Eve looked up, looked around. Her face burned, her heart raced. She managed to laugh. ‘What?’

Elena studied her face, sighed. ‘Yeah, thought so. I told you to be careful.’

Eve frowned. ‘You think I’m like that?’ She shook her hand the way Elena had done weeks ago, palm parallel to the ground, waggling side-to-side.

‘No.’ Elena pushed her hand down, glancing around to make sure nobody had seen.

‘Well, what if I am?’ Eve said, defiant.

Elena pursed her lips, folded her arms. ‘I know you. You just needed someone, Eve. Some excitement, danger. That’s what you wanted, right? That’s why you’re here now.’

‘Yes,’ Eve said. ‘But it’s more than that.’

‘You can’t live like that, Eve. Just… be happy with Niko.’ Elena reached out and touched her shoulder, and Eve put her hand on top of Elena’s, grateful that the other woman didn’t find her disgusting, even as Eve hated what she was saying.

‘I know,’ Eve said. ‘But I – I think I love her.’

Elena shook her head. ‘It can’t happen, and you know that. I wish it could, for you, but it can't.’

‘But, it did happen.’

…

She and Niko came together, once, twice, as the schedule permitted, their marriage held as holy by the army officers, who had a room set aside for it.

Niko laughed, scratching the back of his head as she suggested it.

‘It’s a bit perfunctory, isn’t it?’

‘I want to know you, again,’ Eve said.

She moved above him, hands stroking over his chest, and she wished.

…

‘He looks like a pirate.’

Eve looked up as Oksana plopped beside her at breakfast, Eve’s mouth full of oatmeal. ‘What?’ she said around the slop.

Oksana pulled a face, as though her own table manners were impeccable rather than evidence of someone who’d starved more than once. ‘Your husband.’ She held up her left hand to cover her eye. ‘Arr.’

‘Funny.’ Eve turned back to her breakfast, feeling a prickle run up her back. She didn’t know what it was.

‘I miss you,’ Oksana said, voice low. She hunched over her bowl, poking at it with her spoon.

‘I miss you,’ Eve said.

‘We can be friends?’ Oksana sounded strangled.

Eve nodded with a tight smile. Lying.

…

Niko was discharged, his missing eye too big an impediment to his ability to fight, and he helped out in the kitchens instead. They were given a room in the house, the corridor Oksana had found repurposed and a mattress slung on the floor for them. She lay in bed at night, listening to Niko now, his deep heavy breathing and his smell, and wished she were back in the dorms, an arms-length from Oksana.

Eve noticed Gemma seemed to hang around during mealtimes, as long as she could, and she couldn’t bring herself to care.

Her friendship with Oksana swung from fun to awful, sometimes in the same minute, the other woman’s sense of humour bouncing from absurd to cruel. Oksana hadn’t touched her for weeks, even accidentally, keeping distance between them. Respectful, even if she couldn’t hide her sour expression every time Niko came to find Eve, to spend time with her.   

‘Are you happy?’ Niko asked her one night, his head tilted towards the starry sky, cigarette held loose in his fingers. He’d come to walk her back to their room, chivalrous as always. His bandages were off, an eyepatch in place that Eve supposed should make him look dashing. She was just glad he couldn’t see her face as she contemplated the answer to the question.

‘I don’t think anyone can be happy, with all this.’

‘I told you not to come.’ Niko tilted his head towards her, taking another drag of his smoke. ‘You’re glad you did, though?’

She nodded, taking the cigarette from him for her own drag. ‘Are you happy?’

‘I keep wishing we had kids.’

Eve felt stung. ‘I’m sorry.’ She hadn’t thought about that in a long time. It had worked out better, she thought, to not have been able to have them.

‘No, I mean. If we had kids, you’d be at home, and you wouldn’t have seen this.’ Niko waved an arm to encompass the tent, the house, and she felt like he was talking about Oksana.

‘But I wanted to see this. All of it.’

Niko shook his head. ‘I didn’t want you to. I don’t want you to understand what I’ve done.’

Eve dropped the cigarette, crushing it under her foot.

‘I wasn’t finished with that,’ Niko said.

‘Gemma understands what you’ve done,’ Eve snapped, cruel. She wanted him to know she knew, that she was busy forgiving him while he tried to get her to orbit him.

Niko drew himself up, squared his shoulders. ‘I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything.’

‘Can she give you children?’

‘Eve – ‘

‘I’m not off the mark,’ she said. She felt like crying, swallowing a lump in her throat. ‘You don’t want me. You don’t understand me.’

Niko sighed, shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘I do. I do want you. But, she – you’re different. I’m different. I feel… better, around people who didn’t know me before. More like me. I want to be with you, I’m just, I’m trying too hard to fit back with you, like before.’

‘So, stop trying.’ She didn’t know if she meant give up or give in, but he kissed her, leaning down, a long curve in his neck that she used to love. She reached up to cup his face, palm brushing over the strap keeping the patch in place. She pulled back, running her fingers across the scar disappearing into his beard, trying to reconcile this with the Niko from before.  

They went back to their room. She didn’t feel anything.

…

The war ended.

The war ended, and Eve was happier that Oksana hugged her for the first time in five months, their bodies fitting together as they once had. It was too short, cut off as Niko swoops in, wrapping his arms around both of them.

Oksana stiffened, pushing him away, and he barely noticed, moving on to hug Gemma.

‘You can go home,’ Oksana said, her eyes on Niko. ‘Congratulations.’ The bitterness practically drips from her, smearing an ugly expression across her face.

‘What about you?’ Eve said.

Oksana shrugged. ‘I’ll work it out.’

The press of other bodies, of celebration, pushed them apart, Elena grabbing Eve’s hand and pulling her towards the barrels of wine.

‘They were hoarding them,’ Elena said, two mugs already dangling from her hand.

Eve drank too much, and ended up around the back of the tent to escape the crowd. The celebration is even inside the tent, the men laughing.

Oksana was already here, sitting on the grass, bundled up in her thick woollen jumper.

‘Hello, Eve,’ she said.

Eve walked over, kneeling on the grass in front of her. She was clumsy, the alcohol making her body feel too big.

‘I’m so sad,’ Eve said.

‘Eve,’ Oksana whispered.

They kissed, Eve pushing Oksana down onto her back in the grass, taking her hard, squeezing the sounds out of her like it’s the only thing keeping them alive. She didn’t care, not anymore, if someone saw, she just knew that she was coming alive again, the sadness wrapped through her chest and her heart dissipating to be replaced by joy.

‘What will you do?’ Eve said, after.

‘Anything, to be near you.’

…

It wasn’t possible.

…

‘I have to go with Niko.’

‘You don’t.’

‘This can’t happen.’

‘But it did.’

‘Oksana…’

‘I love you.’

‘Please, don’t. Please.’

‘But I love you.’

…

Eve went home with Niko, back to their house, cold and empty and dusty. They pottered around each other for a few months, Niko spending longer and longer at the pub and coming home smelling nothing like alcohol.

She saw Gemma out and about. She lived in the next town, a coincidence. She wished Oksana lived the next town over.

She wished Oksana lived next door.

(She wished Oksana lived right here).

…

And then she received a letter, the handwriting jerky, like a spider dipped in ink dancing across the page. She stared at her name, knowing it was Oksana, surprised, shocked, flattered, excited, heart struggling out of her chest, up her throat, into her head.

The letter is on a page that was ripped in half, and Eve can picture Oksana starting to write, getting frustrated, unable to find the words, to come up with:

_Eve,_

_I miss you._

_Oksana._

Eve stared at the spelling of her name, tracing the letters with her fingers. She’d spelled it wrong this whole time. She knew it was an invitation to write, to talk, to be friends. Oksana wanted whatever Eve had to give. She flipped the letter over to look at the address.

Oksana was in London, an hour away by train. Only an hour.

…

It wasn’t possible. It still isn’t possible.

She couldn’t, and she can’t, and she needs to try with Niko, she’ll be ruined, she’ll have nothing, this can’t happen.

…

_Dear Niko,_

_Be with Gemma._

_Eve._

…

Eve saw Oksana through the shop window, holding out a dress for a wealthy-looking woman, rolling her eyes and scrunching her nose when the woman turned away to go try it on. She looked beautiful, a black dress hugging her waist, the capped sleeves hiding the unevenness of her shoulders. Her hair was swept up, looking smoother and even shinier than Eve had ever seen before.

She took a moment to admire her, the malleability of her face, the smoothness of her cheeks, those long fingers sweeping over fabric reverently.

Oksana turned to look out the window, and Eve saw her mouth drop open, saw her mouth form ‘Eve?’ before rushing to the door, the bell above it jingling as Oksana swept out into the street.

‘Eve?’ Oksana said, breathless.

‘Oksana.’

Oksana crashed into her, arms wrapping tight around her shoulders, burying her face in her shoulder and inhaling. ‘Eve.’

Eve felt like crying, rubbing her hands against Oksana’s back, against the smooth material of her dress, wanting to slip her hands inside. Her body felt warm, light, Oksana's scent there under her perfume and the smell of her new clothes. Home.

They stood like that until the woman inside the store rapped on the glass, gesturing for Oksana to come help her.

Oksana held up her middle finger, casually. ‘How long are you staying?’ she said, ignoring the woman’s scandalised face.

‘As long as you’ll have me.’

Oksana smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry to those of you waiting for more Widow - this entered my head and didn't let me leave. 
> 
> Soundtrack to this is just 'Tell Me' by Dark Dark Dark on repeat.
> 
> chillinglikeavillanelle.tumblr.com, talk to me.


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